Monthly Archives: November, 2012

This week’s Recommended Reading features articles on low-value health care services in both the United States and Australia, along with a piece on emotional support for physicians coping with medical errors and adverse events: In a new Archives of Internal Medicine article, the authors report that diagnostic tests are frequently repeated among Medicare beneficiaries. Such [...]

In September, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report titled Higher Use of Advanced Imaging Services by Providers Who Self-Refer Costing Medicare Millions. The report concluded that: From 2004 through 2010, the number of self-referred and non-self-referred advanced imaging services—magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) services—both increased, with the larger increase among [...]

Catch up on the latest articles on medical professionalism in this week’s Recommended Reading: A new article in Health Affairs discusses the development of the Teamwork Effectiveness Assessment Module (TEAM), a tool for physicians to evaluate how they perform as part of an interprofessional patient care team. This research was funded in part by the ABIM [...]

Read the latest articles on Choosing Wisely® and physician professionalism in this week’s Recommended Reading: The growth in CT imaging has been accompanied by an increase in cumulative radiation exposure in the general population. A number of campaigns, such as Choosing Wisely, have drawn attention to this issue. A recent Journal of the American College [...]

The nine specialty societies that were part of the launch of the Choosing Wisely campaign in April were courageous in identifying medical tests and procedures that physicians and patients should question. More than 20 additional societies will be issuing lists in 2013. They should be commended for their leadership and putting the interests of their [...]

Here’s the latest medical professionalism articles in this week’s Recommended Reading: In Medical Professionalism, Revenue Enhancement, and Self-Interest: An Ethically Ambiguous Association, the author argues that the medical professionalism literature “should distinguish permissible and impermissible self-interested actions” by physicians. He believes that financial incentives such as pay-for-performance are permissible but are not a substitute for [...]